Jacopo Napoli

Jacopo Napoli
(b Naples, 26 Aug 1911; d Ascea, Salerno, 19 Oct 1994). Italian composer. He studied composition with his father, Gennaro Napoli, and the organ and piano with Cesi at the Naples Conservatory.

He taught at the conservatories in Cagliari and Naples and was director of the Naples (1954–62; 1976–8), Milan (1962–72) and Rome (1972–6) conservatories. He was a member of the Accademia di S Cecilia and of the Consiglio Superiore delle Antichità e delle Belle Arti, and was artistic director of the Teatro dell'Opera in Rome and the Teatro S Carlo in Naples. In 1972 he founded a school of piano, violin and woodwind teaching in Cremona.

Napoli's output includes numerous operas along traditional lines, characterized by a broad melodic style. Some of these have the quality of a vignette, such as Miseria e nobiltà, on a typically Neapolitan subject, while others are more intensely dramatic, e.g. Mas'Aniello. In his later stage works, including Il barone avaro and Dubrowski II, Napoli responded, albeit in a limited way, to some of the linguistic and formal innovations of contemporary music theatre. However, his instrumental and vocal output remained cautiously conservative, if rich, varied and fluid.